By : Tucker Mitchell
Source : http://www2.scnow.com
Category : Small Business Grant
The Florence City Council is expected to approve new maintenance codes for downtown buildings and (small) pots of money to help building owners meet those rules at its meeting Monday night. But the resulting revitalization isn’t shaping up as just a party for downtown.
A program that’s launching at the same time is designed to bring adjoining neighborhoods into the mix, a tip of the hat to long-standing complaints by city councilman Ed Robinson and others that the downtown revitalization effort has an elitist ring to it.
The city recently engaged B.P. Barber Engineering, a major regional consulting firm, to conduct an intensive study of the struggling residential areas bordering the historic downtown to the northwest, north and east. Some preliminary meetings with B.P. Barber’s project leaders have already taken place. Neighborhood tours and meetings are scheduled to begin at the end of the month.
The city is paying B.P. Barber $52,000 to conduct the meetings and study, and, of course, to produce a final report. B.P. Barber, which has a Florence office, was acquired by URS last year, a national engineering concern.
Florence City Manager Drew Griffin said it makes sense to connect downtown revitalization with the potential redevelopment of nearby neighborhoods.
“Good neighborhoods are essential to the growth of Florence,” Griffin said. “We’re looking to grow, looking to be proactive. This is another part of that.”
While B.P. Barber is an engineering firm, its study will include more than just assessing infrastructure needs, although it will do that, too. The company will ask residents about needs across the board, and has hired outside contractors to address areas like police coverage, neighborhood activism, and social services.
Griffin said B.P. Barber will also consider the much-studied historic downtown as a part of its work. Connecting that work to the neighborhood work makes sense, allowing the consultant to also take a look at the so-called “displacement” question. Robinson, and others, worry that a revitalized downtown won’t have any room for the businesses and business people who have populated it during leaner times.
The neighborhood study will go hand-in-hand with an aggressive push by the city to launch real downtown revitalization. A big step in that march is expected to occur later this spring when developers of the downtown hotel and restaurant project finally break ground on W. Evans. The city is providing significant incentives to that development group. Several other private development projects are also under consideration in that same general area.
The new maintenance ordinance and the associated small business incentives, up for a final reading on Monday’s council agenda, will go hand-in-hand with that work.
The ordinance is designed to require owners to repair buildings in the narrowly defined downtown district if those buildings “diminish property values or detract from the appropriate appearance of the downtown Historic District.” Specific tenets of the proposed ordinance include requiring owners to keep their properties in “good repair,” to repair or replace structures and decorative elements on building fronts, repair or remove structurally deficient elements in the rear of buildings, remove extraneous elements on walls and roof, hide items in storage from public view, and endeavor to hide the fact that a building may be unoccupied. There are a number of more specific guidelines as well. The Design Review Board, an appointed body, would oversee compliance.
Council is also expected to approve a package of grants, worth just less than $300,000, that would provide funds for minor repairs, grants of $500 per property for new signage, a $500 per property stipend to hire an architect to provide design assistance (the city has spoken with some local architects about providing pro bono services as well), and the creation of a downtown “business incubator” that could house some small businesses in enhanced, city-owned space while they got their feet on the ground, or while renovations were completed at the businesses’ existing location.
The city is also working with local banks to provide a low interest loan pool that could provide funding for businesses that need more capital.
Griffin said the grants won’t require qualification, other than ownership of properties in the area. The loan pool, which in time may work as a revolving fund, would be bank qualified.
Monday’s council meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, at 700 Park Avenue. It’s one of an occasional series of meetings held at community sites rather than at the City-County Complex.
Source : http://www2.scnow.com/news/pee-dee/2012/mar/11/florence-city-council-big-night-downtown-neighborh-ar-3392007/
